Here's the sales pitch: use the service as much as you want for a flat monthly fee of under $10, potentially saving money over paying per transaction. It sounds like Netflix, but it's a new and fairly unconventional approach to how Cardtronics is selling ATM access.

There should be little debate as to whether the U.S. payment system is falling behind the rest of the world. Great Britain and others lead the world in real time payment options at affordable prices to consumers, merchants and other payment stakeholders.

Samsung Pay's ability to allow mobile payments while mimicking plastic card transactions will make it harder for rivals and merchants to strike back by disabling NFC at the point of sale when the system debuts later this year.

Bank of the West has joined the early adopters of technology that lets customers pay bills by photographing them with their smartphones, potentially reinforcing the customer-retention benefits of online bill pay.

American retailers have struggled with mobile payments, largely because they try to reinvent the entire buying process instead of evolving what's already there. Starbucks' success is rooted in its willingness to take the easiest route time and again, an approach that is clear in how it chose to implement Apple Pay.